


Pearl Kink

by love_killed_the_superstar



Series: Roses and Renegades [3]
Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: Character Study, Established Relationship, F/F, Homeworld (Steven Universe), Homeworld Gems - Freeform, Homeworld Hierarchy (Steven Universe), Homeworld is Horrible, Pre-Canon, Renegade Pearl, White Diamond Theory, despite the title THERE IS NO KINK IN THIS FIC I PROMISE
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-22
Updated: 2018-03-22
Packaged: 2019-04-06 06:52:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,466
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14051376
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/love_killed_the_superstar/pseuds/love_killed_the_superstar
Summary: Candy is starting to suspect Rose is getting a little too attached to White Diamond's pearl.





	Pearl Kink

**Author's Note:**

> I PROMISE THERE IS NO KINK IN THIS FIC IF YOU WERE LOOKING FOR KINKY STUFF TURN BACK NOW  
> Candy is a gem OC of mine, a fellow rose quartz in the Zoo, and a friend of Rose's. Maybe one day I'll draw up a character design for her idk  
> Anyway, without further ado... lets go

When Laguna Agate makes another tired announcement about White Diamond coming to the Zoo, Candy can't help but feel a little frustrated. The sole purpose of the creation of rose quartzes was to ensure that Pink Diamond's Human Zoo would run smoothly, with round-the-clock carer gems to watch over her specimens when she was busy with the colony. After being created for such a duty, it's insulting that White Diamond feels the need to be constantly checking in, even when Pink Diamond is nowhere to be seen.

They all know _why,_ of course, even though the agates in charge are quick to reprimand if they hear the quartzes on board whispering about it. Pink Diamond is handling her first Homeworld Colony _badly,_ spectacularly badly, and a lot of blame naturally falls on her strange obsession with the humans she has collected over the last millennium. The colony is showing signs of failure already, because the bismuths are starting to build before the lapis lazulis have even been assigned to terraform, the quartz soldiers are being made faster than the peridots can set up the correct facets, and there are hordes of gems just wandering the planet aimlessly in search of something to _do._

White Diamond is visiting every few years, almost as frequently as Pink Diamond herself, and it's all under the guise of inspecting the working conditions and Pink Diamond's handling of the humans, but Candy suspects it's all a front. In reality, White Diamond holds the disapproval of a superior officer, constantly berating Pink Diamond for her detachment to Earth, and she knows the Zoo is one of Pink Diamond's favourite places to hide, chiefly because Blue and Yellow Diamond scarcely bother to venture this deep into space alongside running their own colonies.

Earth was supposed to be White Diamond's colony, according to whispers amongst the agates and apatites on board, but it was gifted to Pink Diamond as a test, and that's why she's under surveillance continuously. It would make sense, given the frequency of the inspections.

Candy tries not to dwell on the inevitable notice that the Zoo is failing, and she tries not to dwell on the possibility of the cohorts being divided up some day, with the jaspers and amethysts on board being sent away to guard doors in some run down space station on Betelgeuse while the rose quartzes are left on an abandoned base for as long as it takes for the humans to die out completely. She's one of the more senior rose quartzes stationed at the Zoo, and she can't deny feeling a certain responsibility for her rose quartz sisters, especially the more blatant troublemakers in the bunch.

Like Rose.

Rose isn't an inherently bad rose quartz. She doesn't tend to play pranks on the supervisors, she usually follows her orders meticulously, and she has an affinity for the humans on board that few of the others do, involving herself more readily in the deaths and births, providing healing tears when they're required, and otherwise bonding with them as much as a keeper should. In most regards, she's the model quartz, and the agates favour her as one of the nicer quartzes to keep around in the presence of the Diamonds.

But she has a _type,_ and Candy's worried it will get her shattered one day. No one can fault a quartz for looking, and many of them whistle and joke and comment when a pretty pearl walks by, sticking close to their Diamond's side. But Rose can never simply leave the issue alone, and in particular she seems completely smitten by one pearl in particular.

The problem is that the pearl in question belongs to White Diamond.

The rule has always been to look without acting, but Rose isn't great at hiding things and Candy is far from naïve; the gleeful disposition she has whenever White Diamond visits is plain to see, and she seems especially in high spirits before guard shifts, knowing that she'll have a chance to oggle White Diamond's pearl in a closer range, either from the doors to the enclosure or the doors directly leading to Pink Diamond's resting quarters. Regardless of any pearl fetish that Rose may have (it all seems innocent for now, but who knows how things will progress in the next few decades alone?) Candy worries for her. She tries not to judge – in fact, up until recently her and Biggs were joking that Rose would be lucky to get so much as a once over from a _Diamond's_ pearl – but the attachment Rose is getting to this one pearl is a little intense.

Something needs to be said.

 

…

 

“Pearls are bad news,” Biggs comments one night, as they lounge in their cubbies. “I don't know what our Rose is thinking.”

Her cubby is situated directly below Candy's, and Biggs gazes up at her with her hair dangling down, the target of pulls from the young amethyst stationed below _her._ Likewise, Candy has done her best to rein in her curls, but a few ringlets tumble over her shoulder anyway, and Biggs plays with it like she was made yesterday.

“How do you mean?” Candy asks, propping herself up slightly (after all, lying on her front makes it harder for her gem, nestled snugly in her sternum, to breathe). Biggs rolls her eyes.

“They may be pretty to look at, but they're too expendable. And yes, I know that sounds hypocritical coming from a jasper.”

“It's true that they get shattered easily,” Candy muses. “So there's no use relying on them. Not to mention, I've heard them being used to trick gems who think with what's between their legs.”

“Stars! No way?”

“I heard they got a ruby that way. Sagenite was gossiping to Laguna about it. Apparently the ruby's supervisor left her pearl standing around with instructions to let the ruby do whatever they pleased. They waited all of two sols before the ruby pounced. She was tried on the spot, they couldn't get the assigned zircon in fast enough.”

More quartzes are beginning to gather round as Candy tells the story.

“What did they do to her?”

“Apparently there is some kind of aversion technique used on gems hounded by sensual urges.” Several quartzes exchange uncomfortable looks. “They say their gems are tampered with... that it makes them docile.”

“You're full of shit.” A citrine swings out of her cubby and marches forward, eyes blazing. “Quartzes fuck all the time, and don't pretend you're above us all just because you _reserve_ yourself for Biggs and Rose!”

“I'm not lying,” Candy says evenly, but she feels a pang of anger in the pit of her gem at the accusation. “They don't mind intercourse between quartzes because they know without it we get testy. But no gem has any business making moves on a pearl without permission, you know!”

The door opens, and Rose Quartz slips in quietly, unnoticed by all but the amethysts guarding the door, and Candy, who picks her out of the crowd instantly. She isn't puffy-eyed and slouching with fatigue, which writes off the theory of her having a late shift. No, she's glowing, positively bouncing off of the walls, and something about her happiness _scares_ Candy.

She knows exactly where she's been. Who she's seen.

“Yeah, frack off out of here, Cit,” snaps Biggs, jumping to Candy's defence readily, like she always does. “Of course they wouldn't bust quartzes over some rough-housing, you clod, it's what we do. Would you fuck someone's destabilizer?”

The small crowd of quartzes hoot with laughter.

“Citrine, you kinky clod, didn't know you had it in you!”

“What?! No! O-Of course not!” Citrine's cheeks are aflame, arms folded tightly, and she's glaring at any quartz who continues to splutter with laughter.

“Then what makes a pearl any different?” Biggs asks, eyebrow cocked, knowing she's won.

“They're gems.”

In a beat, Rose has the floor. Her face, positively glowing just moments before, has twisted into something Candy can only describe as disbelief.

“A destabilizer won't bruise or bleed or poof. A destabilizer won't whisper that they need their owner's permission before you violate it. Pearls are gems, no matter how you look at it, and I thought better of all of you than to even _think_ of such things!”

Rose leaves as quickly as she came, her pink curls sailing out behind her as she rushes down the corridor. All eyes are on the door, quartzes murmuring amongst themselves, before Citrine laughs.

“I had no idea we had such an extremist among us,” she says dryly. “Pearls being real gems? She'll be the next gem caught screwing one, just you wait.”

“Shut up, you clodding troublemaker,” Biggs snarls, but the fire is gone, and the quartzes soon disperse and go back to a hearty mixture of joking, sleeping and screwing. To each her own, Candy thinks.

Biggs turns back to her, face scrunched up thoughtfully.

“I always figured Rose just had some kind of... pearl kink,” she says, arms folded. “But now I'm not sure.”

“I don't understand her,” Candy agrees with a heavy sigh. “It would be easy if all it took was telling her not to get obsessed with a particular pearl, but this feels like something different. I'm worried about her, Biggs.”

“It'll be okay,” Biggs murmurs. She reaches up, hand outstretched, and Candy takes it shyly, stitching their fingers lovingly together. Biggs squeezes. “So our girl is caught up with some pearl. We're not gonna lose her over it, Candy, I promise.”

Candy has always been a worrier, and she supposes it's something that will stick with her for as long as she exists, but when Biggs is holding her hand she finds these worries lessen just the tiniest bit.

“I can only hope you're right.”

 

…

 

Candy doesn't mean to eavesdrop, she really doesn't.

It's not like she spends her next shift mulling over exactly what to say to Rose to put the earlier conversation behind them. At the end of the day, she stands by her views. Pearls are a slippery slope for a quartz to climb, especially one that belongs to a clodding _Diamond._ She needs Rose to know that, but she knows that Rose is upset and worked up, and probably won't stand to listen to reason.

Two humans get broken on her watch, but it's reversible damage and they are carted away by a pair of stern-faced apatite scientists to the recovery bay. It's only as she's heading back from her shift that a voice carries down the corridor, and she stops in her tracks.

“I never thought they would say things like that. Stars, they're my family! My Kindergarten sisters!”

“Rose, calm down. It will do you no good to get emotional.”

Candy freezes up. The voice is unmistakably a pearl, but a pearl addressing a quartz so casually, and with such exasperation? It's unthinkable, and yet the conversation goes on.

“But _Pearl._ The way they were talking about other pearls...”

“It's expected. You and I are the exception, Rose, not them.”

Oh stars. Candy feels her gem seize as the cold realisation hits. This isn't some fetish, some secret desire of Rose's that has morphed into an obsession. Whatever she's done to sway this pearl, it's _worked._ There's some sort of communication going on, and all that Candy can think about is that story shared among the agates, of a ruby shocked into submission for having such powerful feelings for a pearl.

She's about to call out when Rose speaks again.

“I've heard the agates talking... about pearls being forced to act as a decoy for gems who can't control their desires. Is... is it true?”

Candy stands at the corner, feeling a surge of both fear and a need to keep listening, and she cautiously peers around the corner. Rose is pacing back and forth, obviously distressed, and White Diamond's pearl is stood off to the side, removed from her post and slouched against the wall in such a way that definitely doesn't reflect the duty of a pearl, let alone one belonging to the formidable White Diamond. She runs a delicate hand through her hair, releasing a sigh.

“It is, unfortunately. Not all pearls do this, but there are certain ones in the court who are supposed to... flaunt themselves in such a way that a gem with high libido would be unable to resist.”

“Stars...!”

Rose buries her face in her hands, leaning back against the wall beside the pearl. White Diamond's pearl reaches out to squeeze her arm, and Rose peers miserably through her fingers.

“Rose, I've only seen it happen eighteen times in almost three thousand years. It is highly uncommon.” She retracts her hand just as Rose's moves to hold on, and she takes a step away. “You... you don't think that _I_ would-?”

Rose's body tenses up, and a few moments pass in a silence that would make even a sapphire uncomfortable.

“Rose.” The voice of a pearl, so small and trembling, fills with distress. “You really think so little of my feelings for you?”

“Shouldn't I?” Rose's voice is sharp, accusing, and she turns her back on the pearl. “All I'm taught is that it's wrong of me to look at you, to want you like I do. I'm told that you're lesser than a gem, some sort of unfeeling being who will trick me into giving you my gem and more because of the way I feel. Everyone around us believes in these things, but when we're together, I...”

Her shoulders slump, and she kicks the wall beside them in irritation. Most pearls would flinch away in the path of a quartz's rage, but this pearl simply kicks the spot beside Rose, and their feet stay perpendicular to each other, like kindergarten holes. (That said, with a Diamond for an owner, this pearl has to be able to withstand a _quartz's_ anger, at the very least.)

“I feel things too, Rose,” the pearl says in a low voice. Candy aches to push this pearl out of the way to comfort Rose, but she has an awful suspicion that Rose would prefer the company of this pearl over her own cohort right now. Frankly, it hurts. “If Homeworld was wrong about me... don't you think it could be wrong about a lot of other things, too?”

Well, who would've thought White Diamond's pearl would turn out to be such a heretic.

Rose takes her dainty hand in her larger, softer one.

“It's a process,” Rose admits. “And whenever I hear someone talking badly about pearls I just want to punch them.”

The pearl groans.

“You're _such_ a quartz.”

Rose dissolves into giggles, and pulls the pearl in close.

“Oh, yeah? Well, you're quite unlike any pearl I've ever known. Or any gem at all.” She sighs. “I figured Candy and Biggs would be waving us off when we make our daring escape, but now I'm not sure. Biggs compared pearls to _destabilizers_ earlier.”

“Quite the comparison,” White Diamond's pearl says dryly. “Once I improve my sword techniques, I'll surely take out gems even faster than the Era 1 models I've seen stationed at the Zoo.”

Rose bursts out into warm, bubbly laughter, and the pearl joins in. It's a soft, mellow sound, and Candy realises with a jolt she's never even heard a pearl laugh before.

At that moment there's an announcement for a shift change, and Candy quickly makes her way down the corridor, wanting to put some distance between her and Rose to stamp out any implications that she was eavesdropping. It's only as the doors to the resting quarters are in sight that she hears the slight thumping of footsteps and feels a familiar hand clamp down on her shoulder.

“Candy!”

Rose is ruffled, cheeks pink with a mixture of exertion and glee.

“Rose.” Candy tries her best to keep a neutral expression. “You left suddenly earlier. What happened?”

Rose shrugs. “I needed to clear my head, that's all.” She falls silent for a few seconds, before asking quietly, “Did you overhear anything?”

Candy shrugs stiffly.

“It's none of my business.”

With a quiet groan, Rose leads her around the corner from the resting quarters, out of earshot of any nosy amethysts or citrines.

“Candy, please understand. I know this situation is a little unorthodox, but-”

“Rose, she's defective,” Candy interrupts sharply, arms folded. Rose wilts a little, and Candy has to fight back the urge to hug her close and beg her not to get herself shattered. “I-I could care less that she's a pearl, you know? That's the least of my concerns at this point! Though, I'm glad she's not seducing you.”

“Please...”

“No, Rose, no! A Diamond's pearl is, what? Scheming some sort of grand escape with you? What in the galaxies is that all about?”

“It's nothing!” Rose snaps, and there's a fire in her eyes that she usually reserves for terrible shifts playing god with the humans. “It's just talk, Candy, that's all it is. Y-You think that either of us are going anywhere? You think she won't be shattered ten years from now... that _I_ won't be?”

“You're a _good quartz,_ Rose,” Candy says slowly, reaching for Rose's hands and squeezing. “You have a long life ahead of you, especially with how good you are at caring for the humans. I'm just scared for you, can't you see that? This pearl is getting in your mind, filling you with all of these thoughts... I don't want you to get hurt.”

“I'm not a human infant, Candy,” Rose says crossly, squeezing Candy's hands back. “And Pearl – I mean, White Diamond's pearl...” She winces. “She's a distraction, that's all. A pretty pearl.”

Candy wants to believe Rose is as simple as this, but it's too late. She's seen the passion in Rose's every move, observed how the two of them act when they believe the world isn't watching. For one thing, her mind is still trying to process how this pearl has become so complex; is it because she was made for a Diamond? Is it Rose's doing, teaching her to think and feel on the same level of desperation their humans do?

“I want you to be safe,” Candy says, and she hates how her voice wavers as she reaches up to cup Rose's cheek. “I can't begin to understand how this works, Rose, I can't. But please, please don't be reckless. I can't bear the thought of losing you if anyone were to find out about this.”

“You won't nark on me?” Rose asks, half in disbelief. Candy shakes her head, eyes narrowing.

“Of course not. Have you forgotten what it means to be a quartz already?”

“In case you haven't noticed, it's impossible to change one's cut,” Rose retorts. She reaches over to run a thumb across Candy's gem, drawing a deep, shuddering breath from her. “I'm not a stranger to you. But still, I'm not who I once was. I can't go back to being a quartz who doesn't care for pearls, Candy.”

“You're so full of love,” Candy berates, but there's a fondness there, a bond born from bursting from the same earth. Kindred gems. Kindergarten sisters. “It'll be the death of you, Rose.”

Rose cracks a smile and claps her on the shoulder.

“It's better to die from too much love than die with no love at all,” she remarks, before heading back into the resting chamber once more, meeting a chorus of, “Where'd you run off to, Rose?”

Candy sighs deeply, steels herself, and follows suit.

 

…

 

Candy isn't a sapphire. She's never been anything more than an average run-of-the-mill rose quartz, and for all she knows, it'll stay that way forever. She'll never have the power to see into the future. She'll never know what's about to happen before she acts. Even if she is more _thoughtful_ than the average quartz, it doesn't mean shards in the grand scheme of things.

Candy doesn't know that less than 1000 years from now Rose will take that pearl's hand and run, turning on all of gemkind for a backwater planet the precious humans come from. She doesn't know that Rose's rebellion will take off, in a way that she never dreamed possible, and that somewhere along the way Candy, Biggs and a few of their craftier quartz sisters will hatch a plan to join Rose's brigade of renegades.

She has no way of knowing that the first time she is informally introduced to Pearl, no longer terrorised by a Diamond and standing at Rose's side in a way that is entirely her own, Candy will hold out a hand for her to shake.

Rose will be so proud.

 

**Author's Note:**

> There are a couple more pieces I want to do for this, but I guess I'll just add onto this series whenever, idk. I enjoy writing snippets of a life so far removed from the current show, it's fun to explore Rose and Pearl growing closer, and how the caste divide might put strains on relationships between Rose and her fellow quartzes.  
> HAVE YOU GUYS SEEN THAT NEW TRAILER CN DROPPED BECAUSE I'M SO HYPED


End file.
